A tale of two projects in North America's Southwest.

A tale of two projects in North America's Southwest. MICHAEL E. WHALEN & PAUL E. MINNIS. Casas Grandes Casas Grandes (Great Houses), a small village in Mexico, in the state of Chihuahua, situated on the Casas Grandes or San Miguel river, about 35 m. S. of Janos and 150 m. N.W. of the city of Chihuahua. and itsHinterland: Prehistoric Regional Organization in Northwest Mexico.xvii+239 pages, 50 figures, 16 tables. 2001. Tucson (AZ): University ofArizona (body, education) University of Arizona - The University was founded in 1885 as a Land Grant institution with a three-fold mission of teaching, research and public service. Press; 0-8165-2097-6 hardback $45. E. CHARLES ADAMS There are several notable people named Charles Adams: Charles Adams (1770-1800), son of John Adams, brother of John Quincy Adams Charles Adams (Colorado), (1845-1895), American Civil War soldier and diplomat (ed.). Homol'ovi III: A Pueblo Hamlet in theMiddle Little Colorado River Little Colorado RiverA river of northeast Arizona flowing about 507 km (315 mi) northwest to the Colorado River just above the Grand Canyon. Valley, Arizona (Arizona State MuseumArchaeological Series 193). xvi+373 pages, 80 figures, 138 tables. 2001.Tucson (AZ): Arizona State Museum/University of Arizona Press;1-889747-71-8 paperback $24.95. E. CHARLES ADAMS. Homol'avi: An Ancient Hopi SettlementCluster. xviii+304 pages, 30 figures, 28 tables. 2002. Tucson (AZ):University of Arizona Press; 0-8165-2221-9 hardback $50. The American Southwest has long been associated with pioneeringarchaeological efforts, methodological advances, and has served as alaboratory for ground-testing new theoretical frameworks. Traditionally,work has been limited to the Southwest within the United States United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . Untilrecently, the international border has served as a barrier to researchand an imaginary line In general, an imaginary line is any sort of line that has only an abstract definition, and does not exist in fact.As a geographical concept, an imaginary line may serve as an arbitrary division (such as a border). beyond which we could safely ignore archaeologicaldevelopments and keep the complex societies of Mesoamerica at bay. Thelast 20 years, increasingly including work by Mexican scholars, havedemonstrated that we can no longer ignore developments in northernMexico, especially for the later periods of pre-contact history. Whalen& Minnis, in one of the volumes considered here, show convincinglythat the northern reaches of Mexico fit comfortably within the fold of'Southwestern North America'. This Southwest has alsobenefited enormously from sustained projects that remain regionally andtemporally focused, addressing a manageable set of questions. The three volumes discussed here exemplify this strength. Allcentre on the critical, last major period prior to European invasion (AD1200-1450), but do so in very different environmental, demographic andsocial contexts. A century of research into the late pre-contact historyof the Southwest has provided detailed records, and volumes ofmeticulous studies of material culture, especially ceramics. We havemore details for areas north of the border, but Casas Grandes (a mere110km into Mexico) has long figured in discussions. The period ofinterest is characterised by the development of large consolidatedvillages (pueblos), some with as many as a thousand residents. Villagesgenerally occur in discrete clusters along major river systems, somedistance from neighbouring clusters. Clusters share a number of traitsinterpreted as signalling emergent or developed social identities, andinteractions among clusters are well documented. However, the social andpolitical organisation A political organization is any organization or group that is concerned with, or involved in the political process. Political organizations can include everything from special interest groups who lobby politicians for change, to think tanks that propose policy alternatives, to of these late pueblos and clusters remains amatter of debate and inquiry. Models range from relatively autonomousvillages with minimal social differentiation to elite establishmentswith developed regional decision making structures. Set within thistheoretical debate, the Casas Grandes and Homol'ovi projects areexplicitly concerned with power--who had it, how it was distributed, itsbasis, and how it was exercised. Given their distinctly different datasources and pre-existing knowledge bases, they provide reconstructionswith dramatically different scales of precision. Two of the volumes report and interpret data derived from theHomol'ovi Research Program, directed by E. Charles Adams for over20 years; it examines a settlement cluster--seven large villages locatedalong a 32km stretch of the Little Colorado River flood plain innorthern Arizona Northern Arizona is dominated by the Colorado Plateau, the southern border of which in Arizona is called the Mogollon Rim. In the West lies the Grand Canyon, which was cut by the flow of the Colorado River while the land slowly rose around it. . One volume, that edited by Adams, reports workcompleted at one of these villages. Adams' second volume presents acomprehensive assessment of the history, development and ultimatedepopulation DEPOPULATION. In its most proper signification, is the destruction of the people of a country or place. This word is, however, taken rather in a passive than an active one; we say depopulation, to designate a diminution of inhabitants, arising either from violent causes, or the want of of the Homol'ovi group of villages at multiple spatialscales, synthesising work at several sites. Michael Whalen Michael Whalen or Mike Whalen or variations thereof may refer to: J. Michael Whalen - Writer Michael E. Whalen - professor Michael J. Whalen - (composer) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0923482/, http://www.michaelwhalen.com/home.html, http://www.alchemyrecords. & PaulMinnis, who have been working in the Chihuahuan desert Noun 1. Chihuahuan Desert - a desert in western Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and northern MexicoMexico, United Mexican States - a republic in southern North America; became independent from Spain in 1810 of north Mexicosince 1989, offer an interpretive and synthetic work, dealing with therole Casas Grandes (a.k.a. Paquime) played in a considerably largerregion. The systematically gathered survey data provide a new andimportant understanding of this critical site and region. All threevolumes offer detailed and plausible social reconstructions grounded inenvironmental and recently collected archaeological data. Beginning withnorthern Mexico, I dwell more on the two interpretive volumes forcomparison, as they exemplify Southwestern research trends. At the time Whalen & Minnis began their Casas Grandes RegionalSurvey Project, there was a limited empirical base from which to build,excepting Charles Di Peso's excavations at Casas Grandes. They havemade up for lost time, pursuing three goals: 'to establish thefirst well-grounded regional context for Casas Grandes', 'toassess the extent and nature of regional organization andintegration', and 'to reconsider Casas Grandes and theregional polity that formed around it' (p. 5). Beginning with adiscussion of complex societies and regional systems, they highlighttraditional models of organisation and differentiation, emphasisingresource allocation resource allocationManaged care The constellation of activities and decisions which form the basis for prioritizing health care needs , circulation of goods, and leadership functions.They discuss archaeological measures to evaluate settlement data,phrased as measures of scale, complexity, and integration: these includethe size and number of elements in a system, the scale and distributionof public architecture, other evidence of communal effort, andassessment of how these articulate. A review of Chihuahuan research follows, with considerableattention devoted to Di Peso's work and ideas. His 1958-61excavations lead him to propose that Casas Grandes served as a northernoutpost for a Mesoamerican trade empire, its rise and fall linked toexternal sources. Chronological re-evaluation and subsequent researchhas generally disposed of this model, replacing it with the concept of acomplex and expansive regional system centred on Casas Grandes. In fact,Stephen Lekson has recently suggested that this system was founded bythe heirs of an earlier system based in Chaco Canyon, continuing atradition of hierarchical rule based See rules based. in commerce and ritual, with aconsiderable sphere of influence. It is against this backdrop that the Casas Grandes survey ispresented. Coverage included preliminary opportunistic reconnaissanceand later systematic intensive coverage of blocks at various distancesfrom Casas Grandes; distributed across an area of 150km, the surveycovered 262[km.sup.2] and recorded over 350 sites. Methodology, siteattributes, characteristics, and distribution are discussed; this isdeveloped into an analysis focused on scale, functional differentiationand integration. What remains problematic with Chihuahuan chronology is the lengthof the Medio period (1200-1450). The majority of the sites date to thisperiod and temporal differentiation within it has proved intractable.Thus, as contemporaneity has to be assumed across several generations,the precision of political reconstructions is limited, virtuallyeliminating any capacity to directly address agency or change,restricting interpretation to system-level discussions. This, however,is done well; a clear hierarchy is detectable, with a larger number ofsizable settlements closer to Casas Grandes. A wider range of complexityin this inner zone is also visible, using a 'complexity score'for sites with evidence for several different functions (p. 150)including features directly or indirectly related to ritual, ballcourtsand macaw macaw:see parrot. macawAny of about 18 species of large tropical New World parrots (subfamily Psittacinae) with very long tails and big sickle-shaped beaks. Macaws eat fruits and nuts. pens. Yet complexity scores do not correlate with settlementsize. Casas Grandes is off the charts on all measures. Rank-size analyses are used to further explore each settlementzone. These analyses support the primacy of Casas Grandes, hut theysuggest a more limited spatial scope of influence than almost allprevious analyses. Whalen & Minnis' penultimate pe��nul��ti��mate?adj.1. Next to last.2. Linguistics Of or relating to the penult of a word: penultimate stress.n.The next to the last. chapterexplores this in greater detail: although Casas Grandes was clearlycentral, settlements of varying size within the inner zone evidence manyof the same functions. A review of mortuary data from Casas Grandesconcludes that there is little evidence for pervasive rankdifferentiation (p. 180-1). The authors see little evidence that CasasGrandes monopolised production of wealth items. They do not deny thepresence of elites and their use of traditional means for support, butthey have constructed a detailed basis for downsizing their status andreach, making them locals, linking power more to control of ideas thangoods. In a twist on Di Peso, those with power, especially thoseheadquartered at Casas Grandes, used Mesoamerican symbols, objects andconcepts to secure position. They argue Casas Grandes' influencewas dominant within 15km, and their reach extended about 30km, stronglylinked to semi-autonomous local systems. Direct influence extends to adistance of about 75km. In this larger area, stylistic similarity andtrade relationships suggest a sphere of interaction rather thanpolitical dominance. Acknowledging their interpretations as'suggestive rather than conclusive' (p. 207), they havenevertheless demonstrated a local basis for the rise and fall of CasasGrandes and its polity and presented data meriting a downsizing of itsscope and influence. Shifting north, the Homorovi settlements are intimately linked tothe Hopi people. These figure prominently in the oral histories andmigration narratives of several Hopi clans, and Hopi are among the mostanthropologically studied of the Pueblo groups. Archaeological,ethnohistoric, and ethnographic eth��nog��ra��phy?n.The branch of anthropology that deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures.eth��nog work provides a largely uninterruptedbridge between the periods of emphasis in Adams' work and thepresent. Pre-contact ties between Homol'ovi and Hopi villages arecentral to understanding its history, and residents from these puebloseventually joined Hopi villages. Thus, Adams'work is infused withand informed by an understanding of contemporary and historical Hopi;the author's extensive fine-grained previous research in thesettlement cluster and higher temporal resolution Temporal resolution refers to the precision of a measurement with respect to time. Often there is a tradeoff between temporal resolution of a measurement and its spatial precision (spatial resolution). , allows him to discusspolitical and social dynamics Social dynamics is the study of the ability of a society to react to inner and outer changes and deal with its regulation mechanisms. Social dynamics is a mathematically inspired approach to analyse societies, building upon systems theory and sociology. . The volume edited by Adams is a largely descriptive site reportdedicated to dissemination of primary data and interpretations from thework at one of the Homol'ovi villages. Similar reports have beenproduced for other sites he has investigated, making it possible forother researchers to question Adams' interpretations. Adams andassociates had tested five of the seven village sites when this volumewas written; they are now working at a sixth. There are three villageswith over 500 rooms, and four smaller sites, spaced relatively evenlyalong the flood plain of the Little Colorado River. Adams estimateshaving tested or excavated roughly five per cent of 2700 occupationalstructures and nearly 20 per cent of the 135+ ritual structures withinthe cluster (Table 2.1), in a project that aims 'to understand theevolution of the Homol'ovi settlement cluster from its foundingabout 1260 to its demise about 1400' (p. 10-11). Adams' synthetic volume begins with some definitionalbackground, a review of the project's methodology, work conducted,and descriptions of each village in the cluster, with details onenvironment and chronology. Key to both is a general lack of wood; theprimary source is flood-derived driftwood used for construction andfuel. This means that dating is primarily achieved through cross-dating.Yet, resolution permits division of the 140-year span into an initial20-year interval and then two roughly equal periods, with the durationand intensity of occupation for each village plausibly reconstructed(Table 6.1). The heart of the volume and its chief contributions come inChapters 6, 7 and 9 which detail the process of village aggregation andideas about how and why it occurred. Adams privileges two concepts,power and stability, and cogently reviews Southwestern models related topower, its exercise and distribution within communities and regions.More so than Whalen & Minnis, Adams explores subtleties of agencyand how individuals and groups with different motivations might seek touse circumstances to enhance standing. In particular, Adams highlightshow ritual and control of ritual knowledge forms both a basis for powerdifferentials and community stability. He follows this with achronological discussion of community organisation emphasising domesticand ritual architecture, and communal space. Adams argues that a group of villages originated to protectterritory during the demographic upheavals associated with thedepopulation of the American Four-corners in the 1200s, a decisionlargely viewed as strategic and directed by residents of the Hopi Mesas.As villages become established, they develop regional ties based inexchange and production of cotton, for which the region is exceptionallywell suited. For an explanation of aggregation and village organisation,Adams returns to an interpretation (developed elsewhere) of ritualcontrolled by village leaders, providing a power base while also servingto reduce 'scalar stress' and unite community segments throughcross-cutting obligations, ties that deter historical tendencies towardfission fission,in physics: see nuclear energy and nucleus; see also atomic bomb. (p. 154-64). Though seen as largely autonomous villages, a localidentity evidenced by a regionally distinct ware develops during thefirst phase of occupation, roughly 1300-1350, during which internalvillage differentiation increases and ties with the Hopi Mesasstrengthen. Adams argues that this early grouping of settlements wasorganised along the lines of a confederacy Confederacy,name commonly given to the Confederate States of America(1861–65), the government established by the Southern states of the United States after their secession from the Union. , united not for commondefence, but for the allocation of the river's water supply,something that also accounts for settlement spacing. All changes when, either in 1330 or 1350 (the latter is preferred),a massive pueblo--Homol'ovi II--is constructed at one end of thesettlement cluster by migrants from the Hopi Mesas, probably linked tothe prominent village of Awatovi (p. 200). Adams argues thatHomol'ovi II residents brought with them a new ritual system, thekatsina Katsina(kätsē`nə, kät`sĭnə), city (1991 est. pop. 182,000), N Nigeria, near the Niger frontier. The city, surrounded by a wall 13 mi (21 km) long, is the trade center for an agricultural region where guinea corn and millet cult, and a new village organisation centred around largecommunal plazas. This system was rapidly emulated and adopted byneighbouring villages, including construction of large plazas. Regionalties were redirected back to the Hopi Mesas, smaller villages vanishfrom the local scene, and the cluster begins to assume a moreHopi-centric identity. Changes include increasing cotton production andconsumption of Hopi Mesas-produced yellow ware ceramics. Additionalregional ties are not well evidenced, with discussion limited largely toobsidian. Adams' final chapters provide a summary andrecapitulation recapitulation,theory, stated as the biogenetic law by E. H. Haeckel, that the embryological development of the individual repeats the stages in the evolutionary development of the species. of his interpretation of the evolution and demise of thecluster around 1400. Combined, these volumes are valuable additions to the Southwesternarchaeological literature; the two synthetic monographs would especiallyrepay readership beyond regional specialists. Whalen & Minnis'and Adams' reconstructions mirror arguments currently in vogue inthe Southwest, where aspiring leaders manipulate economy, connections,and especially ritual to advance their interests. At Casas Grandes, theywere fundamentally checked by an inability to fund the enterprise in atemperamental tem��per��a��men��tal?adj.1. Relating to or caused by temperament: our temperamental differences.2. Excessively sensitive or irritable; moody.3. environment where overproduction o��ver��pro��duce?tr.v. o��ver��pro��duced, o��ver��pro��duc��ing, o��ver��pro��duc��esTo produce in excess of need or demand.o seems unsustainable.Whalen & Minnis, could be criticised for their reliance onrelatively static analyses such as rank-size analyses,'complexity' scores, and other firmly 'processual'frameworks. As they further their work, now including excavations ofselected sites, I hope they will find it possible to develop morerefined understandings of what must have been a dynamic polity. Thisneeds to include agent-based theoretical considerations. Adams, on theother hand, is thoroughly engaged with this literature and has data thatcan be, and is, used to advantage in agent-centred interpretation.Oddly, however, Adams unintentionally follows on Di Peso, implying thatmuch of the rationale and dynamics of the Homol'ovi cluster camefrom Hopi, externalising much of the agency possessed by those who livedthere. While Hopi settlements were central to understanding change andactions within the Homol'ovi cluster, they are not accorded thesame theoretical and empirical treatment Empirical treatmentMedical treatment that is given on the basis of the doctor's observations and experience.Mentioned in: Enterobacterial Infections . Thus, we can look forward toAdams' and Minnis & Whalen's next syntheses, which we hopewill provide arguments as compelling and grounded in empirical data asthose put forward in the volumes under review, and further push thelimits of theoretical innovation. Andrew I. Duff * * Department of Anthropology, Washington State University Pullman,WA 99164-4910, USA (Email: duff@wsu.edu)